


Unwritten - The Blood of D'ni

by sleepyowlet



Series: Unwritten [1]
Category: Myst Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24948181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyowlet/pseuds/sleepyowlet
Summary: D'ni is dead. How do we get her breathing again?
Series: Unwritten [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805575
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Unwritten - The Blood of D'ni

**Author's Note:**

> Babblerama: I got challenged to write a realistic self-insert. Well. I realise writing in a universe where you’re supposed to insert yourself is a bit of a copout, but this has been something that’s been niggling me in the back of my neck for quite a while, so here goes: What exactly happened to Kadish?
> 
> There’s also the question of Relto - it’s meant to be a home away from home for the player, a place they can tweak to their needs. And within the confines of the game it suffices; but in the real world we need to eat, sleep, and poop. And there is a path leading to the side of the mountain; so I think the developers meant to put rooms in it, only they never got around to doing it. So in my story Relto has actual living space.
> 
> Self-indulgent fluff, just posting this here to share more easily with folks who might get a giggle out of it.

_~So this is where my journey begins. Surely I'm not the only one; Zandi implied that there were others. So what exactly is my quest? This mysterious "request" Yeesha made? Who are the others? Were they called here like me, at odds with reality, feeling wrongness like an itch on their spine?_

_Why does this incredible world seem so much more real than what I left behind? Why does it feel so natural to me to touch an image in a book and travel through it?~_

Owly’s journal

Yeesha had a definitive hands-off approach to things. On one hand I appreciated that, let everyone learn at their own pace and intensity; but sometimes I wish she’d just...teach. Teach us the Art, the history, pass on what she knows. Some of us grumble that she just wants something to hold over our heads, that she doesn’t trust us to be responsible - but...

I think that’s not it. I think she’s afraid of leading. Afraid of leading us astray. Afraid of becoming proud, becoming another Great King Ri’neref to unwittingly found another society based on _taking_.

And as for the other concerns? In these discussions I like to point out that I don’t exactly trust us either. Look at what we did (and still do) to each other on the surface.

I was called to the Cavern, and when I arrived, I was sent on a journey. Once I had finished it, I was told that everyone who lived in the dead city (but is it still dead? Does it breathe again as Yeesha said? Or are we just maggots crawling around on the corpse of a giant?) had gone on this journey too.

I mostly kept to myself. I’m a horticulturist, so people came to me with their plant related woes, and sometimes with miscellaneous problems for me to solve. I’m good at solving problems. Most of my “working hours” were spent in food age Er’cana - food is a constant problem, and there are many who think that we should try to be as independent from the surface as possible. I see it as putting in community hours; do your part, and the rest of the time you can do whatever pleases you. And it’s fun; while I chose the profession by necessity, I truly learned to love it. It’s incredibly rewarding to watch the seeds you sowed grow and flourish. Most of that spare time is spent on Relto. It’s become my home away from home; I linked my little green desk there and study the D’ni language. I’ve always been good with languages. Or I paint images of the ages I’ve seen for people to hang in their homes. Those I trade for stuff I need.

I wear several hats now; gardening expert, language scholar, artist. In the D’ni society it was strictly one hat per person, but in a fledgeling society where there are more hats than qualified people to wear them, you tended to end up with several.

Er’cana is hot and perpetually sunny. The crops love it there, and while they depend on the irrigation systems to grow (and movable sun sails to shade them now and then), between Kadish’s intricate mechanisms and Netafim irrigation products my crops were spectacular. That most pests weren’t an issue away from Earth made things a lot easier too.

That is if something didn’t break, and something or another usually did. The Age had sat unused and unmaintained for quite some time, so these things were expected. But lugging water through the sweltering heat by hand was a bitch.

So there was me, Owly, in my green work trousers, bra and undershirt, and my trusty sky blue floppy hat trying to keep my carrots alive because the southern valve had blown. Again.

Ah well. I’d sent off a message on my KI to the Guild of Maintainers that if they wanted fresh carrots for dinner any time soon they’d better do something about the unstable pressure in the piping.

I turned around when I heard the unmistakable woowoo sound of someone linking in.

It was a lanky dude who I hadn’t met yet; dressed in black jeans and a purple t-shirt that said “Talk D’ni to me” across his chest. Okay. that was actually pretty funny. He had his dark hair in a man-bun and carried what looked like a toolkit. Yiss. Finally.

“Are you here to fix the valve?” I asked him waving hello.

He nodded. “Yes. Can you show me where the problem is?”

I set down my watering can and led the way to the waterworks. “The valve is over there, but there’s an underlying problem with the pressure. It just spikes now and again beyond what the valves are made to handle, and then...ka-splash. Water everywhere except where I need it.”

Once inside he set down his toolkit and started checking the gauges. Without taking his sunglasses off. Huh.

“Anything I can do to help?” If we could get things done more quickly together, that meant less watering cans to lug for me.

He opened a panel and stuck his head in. “No, I’ll be fine, this shouldn’t take long. But thanks for the offer.”

I turned to leave, throwing a short “okay” over my shoulder. Back to the watering can.

A little while later he was back. “That should do it, the valve is fixed, and the pressure should be stable. But let me know if the old thing gives you trouble again. Here, let’s link up our KIs so you can reach me.”

I fumbled with the device on my wrist. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for fixing that thing. I swear Kadish had a complexity addiction, there are easier ways to build a pumping and filtration unit.”

“You may be right,” he grinned. “See you around. Shorah.” He linked back out.

I looked at his contact info, realising that we never even exchanged names. The new entry read “Kay”.

***

As it turned out, he wore several hats too. In addition to being temperamental-machinery-fix-it-guy, he was apparently one of the first people who had come to D’ni and was pretty competent with the language and gave classes. Well, that explained the silly shirt.

And now he seemed to like the idea of “community hours” in the gardening ages, and he managed to drum up support. Soon my Er’dana wasn’t the only food age I oversaw. We grew food and medicinal plants, tended to collected specimens the Botanists had brought in, and raised plants for them to experiment with.

Since my chronic illness didn’t flare up as much in the stable weather conditions of the food ages and D’ni, I was able to actually work - something that hadn’t been possible for me on the surface. Besides, there was nobody to fire me if I called in sick now and again.

Kay himself showed up rather frequently for weeding sessions. Claimed fresh air did him good. Not that there was enough of that to be had on Relto or anything. I let it slide.

“Council meeting tonight,” he bit out between grabbing handfuls of grass, “you should come.”

I snorted. “What good would that do? They squabble over minutiae that I can’t be arsed to care about. And they just don’t see the problem that’s causing all of it.”

He paused in his weeding and pulled himself upright. He might have been a Cyber Goth in his life above, because he was wearing what looked remarkably like welding goggles. He certainly seemed the type with his dark clothes and long, black hair. Not that I had ever asked - I usually don’t ask questions and am content with what people choose to share with me of their own accord. “And what would you say that problem is?”

I stood upright too, wincing at my vertebrae popping. “We’re crawling around on a corpse. D’ni is dead, and she will remain dead unless we get her heart beating again. Unless there is blood in her veins.” I mopped at the sweat on my face with the moist towel around my neck. “We need the Art. And for the Art we need books and ink. Sure, we still have caches of them, but those will eventually run out. And the Guild of Writers knows, look at how stingy they are!” I looked squarely into his face, which was somewhat unreadable. “We need to be able to make those things ourselves. If we truly want to rebuild and form a lasting society, we need the means to do so. And that means no restrictions on how many Ages we can Write.”

“You absolutely should come to the council meeting,” Kay quietly said.

I bent back down and continued with my work. “Nah. I’m not the kind of person people listen to. Learned to live with it. Besides, who’s to say I’m right? For all I know I’d just pull a Kadish and get all wrapped up in my own cleverness. Nah, I’ll pass.”

“You’re overseeing the whole horticulture project, and you’re doing it well,” Kay replied.

“Because so far I’m the only horticulturist here. Botanists generally don’t actually know how to grow crops. Consider it a waste of their time,”I grunted, pulling at a particularly stubborn weed. “There was nobody else to do it.”

Kay huffed. “Well, I think you’re right. Our new Writers need to be free to stretch their wings, and they can’t do that if we can’t supply the materials they need.”

“And neither will they if they don’t eat their veggies. And for that we need to grow veggies. This isn’t any less important.”

Kay went back to work. “I never said it wasn’t.”

I shot him a wry grin. “I know. But if us surfacers and the D’ni have one thing in common, it’s this misplaced disdain for menial work. Yes, a lot of people come here to work off some steam or because they genuinely enjoy gardening. Some of them even believe the same things I do. But have you ever seen a council member here? And that is why they won’t listen. I’m not an academic or a rich person. I’m just me. Playing in the dirt all day. What do I know.”

***

I only had a handful of close friends in D’ni. Rhys, an aspiring Writer who had about five Ages dry-written on printer paper; Nora from the Guild of Greeters who had taken to hanging out with me for some reason; and Bear, a grizzled old ‘nam Vet. He was a goofball behind a taciturn facade, and ran a little general store with survival stuff when he wasn’t with his Canadian partner Eric; and he gave classes too.

We had claimed a table in the Bevin communal area and shared a couple of bottles of white, just chatting about what was going on, and what we were doing, when Rhys asked, “I don’t think I ever asked you what your favourite Ages are? I mean, this could be kind of relevant should I ever get to Write that hangout place for us.”

“I like Eder Kemo best, it’s perfect for having little concerts and stuff,” Nora replied, “Plus, it’s really pretty.”

Bear took another sip of his wine. “The Pod Age. I love watching those weird animals.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure to add some critters for you to look at,” Rhys grinned, “Owly, what about you?”

“Kadish Tolesa,” I replied, not elaborating.

Kay nudged me in the side. “You despise Kadish and _his_ Age is your favourite?”

“Hey, I never said that I despise him,” I retorted, nudging him back, trying not to blush too much. I had come to like Kay an awful lot. “I don’t even dislike him, I just think he was tragically misguided. And kind of a waste too? I mean, look at the puzzles of Tolesa and the whole machinery on Er’cana and that whole Ahnonay thing. The guy was a genius. He just did the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Now imagine what that kind of genius could have created doing the right thing for the right reasons. When you think about it, it’s just so incredibly sad.”

“But Yeesha got him out, yeah? He’s alive somewhere out there. And maybe he learned a few things,” Bear said.

I nodded and shrugged. “Anyway, I really like purple, art, and trees. Kadish Tolesa has all of that. And the architecture, broken as it is, is kind of beautiful. And it smells like cinnamon. I think it’s the trees?”

“Trees,” Rhys grinned, “gotcha. So we want festival grounds, critters and trees. And an ocean for me. I really love water Ahnonay. Finding out that it’s just a sham was such a bummer. But it’s still nice to swim there, and you don’t have to worry about anything trying to eat you. And you, Kay? Which Age is your favourite?”

Kay’s pale eyes glittered in amusement. “My favourite Age? This one, of course. As nice as it is to escape to other places once in awhile, the Cavern is home.”

“Laying it on a bit thick, buddy,” Bear grumbled.

Rhys just nodded. “Oh right, you’re a full-timer. Yeah, you’d have to seriously love this place to say goodbye to the sun for it.”

None of us others had yet. Rhys linked home to where he lived with his parents in Louisiana, Bear and Eric went home to Canada regularly, Nora lived in Brazil where she had an office job, and I still had my tiny flat in Germany. But to say I never thought about cutting all ties and just moving into one of the empty homes here would be a lie. If only the tech savvy people would get the communal baths running again! There was one in every neighbourhood - lavish, beautifully decorated things with all kinds of pools and hot tubs and fountains - using the heat of the planet’s core to run. But that wasn’t without dangers - imagine being cooked alive in your tub because a steam valve has the hiccups.

Nora poked me. “Hey Owly, where did you fly off to?”

I blinked and looked around. “Sorry. The communal baths. If they were functional again, people would probably be willing to stay here. That, and washing machines.”

“The Maintainers are on it, and should be able to restore some functionality soon,” Nora replied. “Now if someone would just figure out how to write Relto pages! I’d really like to be able to cat-proof it without ruining the aesthetics.”

“Force fields like on Jalak Dador?” Kay asked.

Nora’s pretty dark eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, that would absolutely do it!”

“If only we could write those things ourselves. But the caches are pretty much on lockdown,” Rhys grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, I get it, but I don’t have to like it.”

Kay leaned towards me to murmur in my ear. “See? You’re not alone with that idea.”

“But how would we even find the right Age? The DRC Remnant has everything locked away!” I hissed back. “And anyway; who knows what we might stumble into? And the Bahro are quiet at the moment and it seems the peaceful side has won, but perhaps they really wouldn’t want us with unlimited resources.”

“Hey, care to share with the rest of the class?” Bear interjected.

I huffed. “It’s just...Kay and I had this conversation a while ago where I said that we need unlimited Writing resources if we truly want to revive D’ni. Books, ink. We need to be able to make everything ourselves instead of just nibbling at the scraps that were left here.”

“Well, there are lots of abandoned Ages around, there must be at least some containing what we need. Kay, between you and me we should be able to figure out which Ages have the bugs and the right minerals. And I think there was an ink pod Age?” Rhys suggested with raising enthusiasm.

Nora shook her head. “But finding the raw materials is just step one. We also need the recipes, or at least enough of the knowledge so we can reconstruct them. And the D’ni Maintainers only ever passed down the knowledge orally. They didn’t write anything down.”

Bear shrugged. “There’s always someone with a bad memory who writes codes they’re supposed to memorise on pieces of paper. I’m willing to bet that they have a secret stash of knowledge somewhere in case of a cataclysm. Atrus knew how to make the ink. He knew how to make the books. Yeesha also might know, but she’s not tellin’. We gotta find those notes, I’m pretty sure they exist.”

I mulled it over. “Well, I say we cross that bridge when we come to it. Getting at the ink-pods and the bugs and the other stuff is what’s most important - if all else fails, we’ll have to recreate everything from scratch. The Roney learned somehow, I’m sure so can we.” I took a deep breath. “We got used to linking through the Nexus, yes? But the D’ni didn’t always do that. You write a linking book to a specific place within an existing Age, yes? So we need just one blank book, a KI image of what the storage room looks like from the inside, and someone who can write a Link to the room. Then someone goes through, goes through the books one by one and collects the relevant ones for us to explore. And then back to Relto.”

Bear nodded slowly, obviously mulling over the plan. “Doable. Rhys can write the Link, and Kay can go through. No offence, Rhys, but he reads D’ni faster than you. But how do we get the blank book?”

“Leave that to me. People call me to help fixing things all the time, I have access to all kinds of places. I’ll think of something.” Kay said and everyone nodded their okay.

I groaned and rubbed my face. “I can’t believe I’m planning a heist with you guys. If this goes wrong, we might get kicked out for good.”

“Hey, we’re not stealing anything beyond maybe one blank Linking Book. The rest we’re just borrowing,” Nora argued, patting my shoulder. “We’re going to put everything back when we’re done. People are probably not even going to notice.”

We hashed out some more details and finally said our goodbyes.

***

Good things take time, and so everything went as it always did for a while. I watched over my crops, I studied, and I painted. I usually withdrew to Relto and used the KI imager as reference, but sometimes I’d just pack up my stuff and paint in loco.

I contemplated the stained glass of the big Window in the K’veer mansion. It faded towards blue at the top, was that supposed to imitate a sky? How old was the building, I wondered, old enough to have belonged to an OG D’ni who still longed for the sun? Or had it become a cultural staple that people just did without thinking about them at all? Wherever one turned in the cavern, floral motives abounded. The D’ni surely did love their vibrant colours and fluid lines. Made one wonder what this place had looked like before the Fall; bustling and alive, filled with art and music.

Eventually Rhys and Kay came through for us and had collected a handful of linking books on Nora’s Relto. We all went, and Bear started distributing survival gear and rations. It was quickly decided that, for expediency's sake, we’d split into teams. Rhys would go with Bear, I’d go with Kay, and Nora would stay put and keep an eye on the KI com channels and signal us to get out if necessary. Or come retrieve us back to her Relto should we be forced to panic link out. I would get to explore an Age with Kay - more quality time with my dreamboat. Not that I would ever do anything about my attraction (I’m not delusional and he’s way out of my league), but just to spend time with him alone was very nice. I just hoped I wasn’t mooning after him too badly; I really didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I’d been on the receiving end of that often enough to never want to do that to another person.

I could feel a wide, giddy grin on my face as I approached the linking book chosen by Kay; there wasn’t anything quite like travelling to a new Age. “Here goes!”

And I linked.

The first thing that always hits you is the smell of an Age. They’re all different. Some are bland, some smell fresh and green. Some smell like spices, and some, like this one, are briny. It was obviously an ocean Age, since we had ended up in a spot overlooking a bay.

Gravity seemed normal-ish too (Gahreesen had seriously freaked me out the first time with all the suddenly being much lighter and being able to jump much higher), so that was good. This was obviously a place people used to come to regularly, the linking spot was paved, and there was a stairway leading down to a beautiful white beach, as well as a path winding away into the other direction. There were some acacia like trees, grass, and further on the gentle hills gave way to a dramatic cliffside with typical elegant D’ni architecture rising from the ocean around the water line. They looked like oblong glass domes and seemed to go on under water as well. But where was the entrance? There were no doors or bulkheads that I could see.

I turned to Kay. “So where do we go first? Down to the water, or up to the top of the cliff?”

Kay pointed up. “Let’s check there first, in case we don’t find anything, doubling back down the stairs is easier than doubling back up the stairs.”

“Yes, that makes sense. Okay, let’s go,” I agreed and off we went, following the path to the top of the cliff.

My question as to where the entrances to the buildings were solved itself pretty quickly. There were doors leading inside the rock, but of course they were locked by some sort of combination mechanism.

“Hm. Knowing the D’ni there should be clues around,” I mumbled, studying the door for patterns. The Guild of Writers loved its plant motifs and organic shapes, but the Maintainers tended to prefer angular, geometric designs. This door showed a combination of geometric and abstract, swirly designs that might be heavily stylized script, but I wasn’t sure. So perhaps this was a place pertaining to Maintainers and Ink-makers? This was looking very promising.

There were five buttons (of course it was five it almost always was five with the D’ni) in glowing different colours set in a pentagon into a circular disc in the middle. The rest of the door was split into five corresponding segments like a cake, and the designs on each slice differed. Pressing the buttons made them change colour, but not only the one you pressed, the other one that held the colour your button changed into would change too. Except one button seemed to be stuck on green.

Ugh. I hoped the damn thing wasn’t broken.

So I tried to figure the thing out - and then I noticed that the disc moved and was just about ready to scream. How was I supposed to figure out what went where when everything could be changed?

Wait.

Not everything. I looked at the ornaments again. Trees, one segment had trees. Most trees were green, right? I hoped I was onto something and turned the disc so the stuck green button aligned with the tree segment. After that it was only a question of matching colours to the designs, which did have a logic to it that I was able to follow.

“Tadaa!”, I crowed as the door opened.

“Rhys wasn’t kidding, you are good at this,” Kay grinned as we went inside.

“Meh, that was an easy one. I think it’s there more on principle than to actually keep anyone out. Complexity addiction, I’m telling you. Well, at least I didn’t have to put a hamster in a freezer and tumble dry a jumper for one hundred years and then put the shrunken jumper on the hamster,” I joked.

Kay looked completely confused. “What?”

I stopped in my tracks. “You mean, you never played Day of the Tentacle? Kay, you gotta. That game is hilarious.”

“Okay. What are the rules?” he asked.

Now it was my turn to blink owlishly. “Rules? What rules?”

“The rules of the game.”

“Uhm. It’s an adventure game, you play it on the computer. Kay, please tell me you know what computer games are,” I replied in mock seriousness.

Kay laughed and shook his head. “Oh! Yes, of course. I’ve been in the Cavern for so long that my mind didn’t immediately jump to that. Now come on, we’ve got ink to find.”

The whole thing was an industrial complex hidden in the cliff and underwater. If I saw right there was a whole collecting and processing unit installed here, for what I sincerely hoped were ink pods. “This is amazing,” I breathed, turning in one spot, open-mouthed.

“Down here!”

Kay’s shout kicked me back to the present, and I followed him down a spiral staircase.

“If I’m not mistaken, these submarines are for harvesting ink pods!” Kay grinned, rubbing his hands together. “And look, a map of the ocean floor. Sadly there’s only one sub left intact. At least I’m only getting a signal from one of them. Number six.”

I stared at the display. My D’ni was passable, but all those technical terms went way over my head. “Can you make out all the words?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Kay nodded.

“Okay, so that means I get in the sub because I need you to guide me.” Great. Good thing I’ve never been claustrophobic.

I made my way over to the little metal ball with fins and rotor and climbed in. Thankfully the controls were pretty straightforward, and only one false start later I was underway.

“Owly, can you still hear me?” Kay’s voice cackled through my KI.

Keeping my eyes on the round porthole before me, I replied, “Yes, I can hear you.”

“Good. Adjust your course twenty degrees to the right.”

I adjusted the course. “Aren’t you supposed to say starboard?”

There was a brief moment of silence. “Say what?”

“Well, since we’re being all nautical and stuff. Right is starboard, left is port,” I smartassed with a wide grin.

Kay apparently deigned to ignore me. “You’re right on course, just keep going into that direction.”

“Roger roger,” I replied and saluted.

After a few minutes I could see huge shapes resembling lollipops looming in front of me. “Kay, I think these are ink pods! We found them!”

“Owly, you need to turn back right now,” came Kay’s voice.

I did a double take. “But why? I’m almost there, and I think I can bring one back!”

“There’s a storm front coming in fast. You need to turn back now!” he shouted. Wow, Kay never shouted.

“Okay, okay, calm your tits,” I mumbled, turning the sub around to head back to the dock.

Something pushed against my sub, making it veer to the side. Cursing, I tried to correct my course, only to be pushed again. “Kay, I don’t think I’m going to make it to the dock!”

“...ink out…” I could barely make out his words through the interference the storm was causing.

“No!” I shouted back, “We’ll lose the sub! It’s the only one left. I’m going to try and beach it!” I hoped he had gotten that. If I beached the sub there was at least a chance of getting it back into the water - if I linked out it’d be lost forever.

I could barely see a thing through all the particles the storm had caused in the water. I tried to go towards the coast and hoped for the best, while the angry waves threw my little sub around like a tennis ball.

Then there was a hard bump and a shudder that threw me out of the seat and head first into the console, dazing me for a few seconds. I hoped that this meant I had reached the land. I got on my shaking legs and screwed the bulkhead open. Tumbling out, I was immediately swallowed by icy water. I made it to the surface and tried to crawl towards dry land, but the undertow kept dragging me back.

I was close to giving up, my numb fingers couldn’t even open my Relto book any more, when a hand clamped around my right wrist like a vise and dragged me out of the water.

Kay pulled me to my feet, grabbed my shoulders and started shouting at me. In D’ni.

I leaned against him. “Dude, I really can’t parse what you’re saying, but I’m sure you’re right. Can we please get dry now?”

We clung to each other as we made our way along the beach and up the stairs in icy sheets of rain. Once through the door I breathed a sigh of relief, even though my whole body was still shaking like a leaf from adrenalin and the cold.

“There are living quarters through here,” Kay said, leading me through a set of doors. “There should be clean clothes we can use. I already started the heating.”

He left me standing in the middle of the room and rummaged through a dresser. When he had found what he was looking for, he pressed a bundle into my hands and pointed to another door. “There’s a bathroom through there,” he said gently, “Your forehead is bleeding. I’ll take care of that, then you can change in private.”

Kay grabbed the first aid kit from our packs and cleaned the small gash on my forehead that I hadn’t even noticed before putting a bandaid on it. Then he left, and I got out of my soggy clothes and towelled myself dry before slipping into the D’ni clothes he’d found me. It was a pair of trousers, a shirt, and a robe in Ink-maker purple, all three made of an embroidered material that shimmered like silk but was as soft as cotton.

When I came back out, I stopped in my tracks. There was Kay, but he didn’t really look like Kay any more. He was dressed in a similar robe, and he carried himself as if he was used to wearing one. His hair was down, framing his long, pale face, and his eyes…I’d seen this before. So many times, every time I entered the museum on Ae’gura eyes like his stared down at me from faces like his in paintings centuries old. Suddenly it all made sense.

“You’re D’ni. You’re way too fluent in the language, you know where to go, you don’t get pop culture references, and your eyes are uncommonly sensitive to bright light. How did I not see this before,” I croaked. And then another thing dropped right into place, and I suddenly felt nauseated. “Kay. That’s short for Kadish, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so,” he replied with a slight smile.

Blindly, I reached for a chair and collapsed on it. “You’re actually Kadish. Oh hell.” I doubled over and covered my face with my hands. “You let me solve that puzzle even though you probably knew the bloody thing. And you let me go out in that sub even though you knew what I’d find.”

I heard his robes whisper as he came closer to rub my back. Then he drew my hands away from my face and I found him kneeling before me. “Yes. I knew that puzzle because I designed it, and I know this Age because I Wrote it for the Guild of Ink-Makers. But keeping my identity secret meant that I had to pretend that this was all new for me too. And that almost cost you your life. I don’t want this to happen again, so I decided to let you know.”

Never ever had I been so thankful for my cowardice where my emotions are concerned. Had I actually tried to flirt with him - I’d just about die of embarrassment. “Who else knows?”

“Yeesha, Watson, Eric, Bear. That’s it,” he replied.

Okay, so I wasn’t the only one fooled by the casual persona he projected. “What’s your angle this time? Still planning on sailing through Kerath’s Arch? Is that why you manipulated my friends and me into this scheme?”

He flinched as if I’d struck him. “No. Never. I...do understand why you would doubt my sincerity, but those days are behind me. I only wish to see D’ni rebuilt to be better than it was. That’s all,” he said quietly. “But it can’t be me. I can’t be the driving force. But I can help those who choose to walk that path, who have the same goal.” He stood and drew me to my feet with him. “I readied the cot for you, rest up. I’ll check in with Nora in the meantime. Don’t link out yet, it’s not a good idea to do that after a bump to the head.”

Ah, that would explain why he’d chosen to stay instead of just returning to Relto or Bevin. I curled up on the cot and hid beneath a richly decorated blanket. “Okay.”

***

Rhys and Bear had found the golden scarabs in the Age they’d gone to, as well as an abandoned mining operation. Between the two Ages we now had all the necessary ingredients (that we knew of), now all we needed was the recipe.

Kay told the group about my near miss, and so they didn’t question why I was so subdued in the aftermath, when everyone else was cheering. I excused myself to my Relto pretty quickly, and thankfully my friends realised I needed space and left me be. Nora’s influence, no doubt, she had a very finely tuned sense when it came to other people’s moods and emotional needs.

We explored the Ages further looking for clues and notes. I suggested Rhys and I traded places so we’d get to see the other Age too. Secretly, I just wanted to avoid Kay. I’d started to time my work hours in Er’cana to coincide with the times he gave lessons, and I chose seats away from him when our group met for a drink.

For now we also took turns to clear the rubble from a collapsed part of the ink factory in Relemahno, as Kadish had informed us the Age’s name was, so we could get to the office and control room. I generally worked with either Rhys or Bear. The only things that we could link it to help were a couple of shovels, a pickaxe, and a wheelbarrow, so it was slow going.

Bear looked up as I came back with the empty wheelbarrow to shovel in more debris that he had freed. “You know, if you don’t talk to him soon, we’re going to take away your Reltos and stuff you in a closet together until you get along again.”

I set the wheelbarrow down with a sigh and sat on the rim between the handles. “It’s not that easy.”

“Yeah, yeah, it kinda is? You know the guy. Just because he’s Kadish, just because he’s that guy Yeesha made so much fuss about, doesn’t mean the guy you got to know isn’t real.” Bear mopped the sweat off his face with a towel and sat down on one of the bigger stones with a grunt. “First and foremost he’s our friend. And at the very least he deserves a chance to explain himself, no?”

I stared at my hands, chewing my lip. “I guess,” I replied mulishly. I still hadn’t really processed the change. I’d so gotten used to Kadish the historical figure, that Kadish the living, breathing person weirded me out to no end. And my trust issues reared their ugly heads. “Did he ask for your help?”

“He vented some. But actually he told me that he didn’t want to push you, so the ball’s very firmly in your court,” Bear chuckled, “So I thought I’d give you a little nudge instead. Because the two of you not talking is driving the rest of us nuts.”

I said nothing, just got up and started shovelling debris into the wheelbarrow again. We were close to done. Kadish had pronounced the rest of the build structurally sound - it had only been a loose pocket of stone that had collapsed inwards. So once everything was cleared away, we’d be good to go.

“Hey, come look at this,” I heard Bear up ahead.

I leaned my shovel against the wheelbarrow and walked to where he was digging away. Dim light shone through a sizable hole in the rubble.

“We’re through,” he grinned, and I whooped and ran to hug him.

Since we didn’t want everything tidy, just passable, we just cleared out enough of the rest so we could pass through comfortably.

“It seems pretty intact,” I said, looking around. Emergency lights illuminated the second half of the facility. This looked like laboratories, and up ahead on a second floor gallery were offices, just like Kadish had said.

“I’ll see if I can find a power switch. You go ahead and try the doors.” Bear walked off and I went up the stairs to the gallery to see if I could get into an office or two.

All in all there were four doors leading off the gallery. If there is one thing that I wish humanity as a whole would learn from the D’ni, it was their ability to combine the practical with beauty. No dismal slabs of concrete dubbed “modernistic” for those people. They were wise enough to surround themselves with beauty at all times.

There was a cackling sound, and the lights came on, and with the lights the door controls.

Luckily they opened without a fuss, and I stepped inside the first room. In spite of the moist sea air permeating everything, most things inside were still intact. I found a tea set on a beautifully carved shelf, a plate of desiccated fruit on a very elegant desk, and what looked like productivity reports in an equally pretty filing cabinet.

The second room seemed to be a control room - including a manual and a chart of safety procedures. I took the manual and snapped a KI image of the chart. Might come in handy.

The third room looked like office supply storage, but it was the last room that made me stop in my tracks.

Generally explorers don’t see a lot of corpses, Kadish’s skeleton in his vault being a notable exception to the rule. But here, right in front of me lay the body of one of the people who had worked in this facility; an Ink-Maker, judging by the purple robe. A note sat in the middle of his desk, as well as a Linking Book. I hurried to tell Bear.

We called the others, and after a little while they linked in. Nora carried what looked like a sheet.

Kadish took one look at the skeleton and walked right out of the room again. Nora started to unfold the sheet, and in a strangely sombre improvised ceremony each of us took one corner and covered the remains in silence.

Bear shot me a meaningful look that I had no trouble understanding. He and I were the only ones present who knew Kadish’s identity, so it was up to one of us to give him comfort. And it looked like Bear had just volunteered me for the job. In the face of what Kadish must feel right now it seemed petty to squabble.

Autistic social failbunny that I was, I just feared that I was woefully unequipped to handle this situation well. Solving problems? That I could do. Comforting a grieving person? I was so very bad at that.

So I slowly left the room and went to look for Kadish, leaving the others to document everything.

I found him on the other end of the gallery, looking out of one of the gigantic windows. He didn’t acknowledge my presence, so I didn’t say anything, just stood beside him looking out over the ocean as well.

“His name was Mareno. We worked together on a few projects,” he finally said, “We weren’t close, just occasional workmates. But I knew him.”

“I’m sorry,” I offered, not knowing what else to say. Nora would. But I couldn’t get her help because she didn’t know.

“Sometimes I almost manage to forget. The chaos, the panic, people falling ill and dying practically the next moment. The wholesale destruction of my people. I’ve never been to Releeshan, I don’t want to see with my own eyes how our numbers have dwindled. I don’t want to know for certain if everyone I ever knew is truly dead,” he continued, his hands clutching the railing so tightly they turned white.

“After I saw what A’gaeris and Veovis did in the library, that they linked fresh corpses and dying people to populated Ages, I grabbed all the books I could find of inhabited Ages and fled to Tolesa. I locked myself and the books in my vault to safeguard at least those and the people living in the Ages they linked to,” he told me, his voice quiet and sad, “But I did not dare follow. I had no idea if I’d caught the sickness, or if I’d been spared. If so, I might still unwittingly carry it with me somehow. That’s what I guarded. That’s what was most precious to me. The lives of my people.”

Ah. That explained a few things that had bugged me for quite some time. The letter he left mentioned books, plural, and the only book I’d ever found in the vault, except the one that appeared later to the alternate version, had been a Link to the Kadish Gallery in Ae’gura stamped with a DRC logo. So that’s what Yeesha had seen in him - ambitious, greedy bastard that he might have been as a Guild Master - but his last act in life had been one of selfless devotion to his people.

He finally turned his head to look at me. “Imagine my surprise when a young woman popped into my vault. She told me that she’d come from the future to rescue me, that she found my body and the books in another timeline and thought that I was worth saving. The fabled Grower,” he let out a chuckle, “Oh the irony.” Then, “I wasn’t sure she was right. Who was I to continue living when so many others had died? When my whole world had ended?”

He looked defeated and brittle, and I just wanted to hug him. Was that a thing I could do? I was usually rather standoffish, but my close friends got hugged. A lot. Eh, screw it, I thought, and followed the impulse.

Then I remembered that I’d spent the whole day shovelling rubble and pushing a wheelbarrow. “I’m sorry, I’m all icky and sweaty,” I tried to extricate myself, but Kadish would not let go. Alright then, I thought, maybe that didn’t matter right now.

“What would be the respectful thing to do with him? I don’t think we have access to the Burial Age, so what do we do?” I mumbled into his shoulder after a few moments.

I could feel Kadish heave a deep sigh. “His soul is with the Maker anyway, it doesn’t really matter. We can bury him here, in this Age.”

***

We buried Mareno a few days later. I’d made a wreath for the mound, and had brought some vases for bouquets. Kadish had been tight-lipped about actual D’ni burial rites, so we defaulted to ours. I’d already planned to cover the mound in slow-growing perennials that wouldn’t spread out a lot, and maybe some hardy and more or less prostrate shrubs like yew or juniper. But the mound had to settle for about half a year first.

Nora had taken care of the headstone, one of her cousins was a stone mason and wouldn’t ask too many questions about the strange inscription. We had agreed on his name in D’ni, and “In your death you gave us hope.” both in D’ni and English.

The stone would take a while, but again; the mound needed to settle first, otherwise the headstone would be lopsided after a few months.

Kadish had translated the letter, and the gist of it was that the Linking Book would lead to a secret Age named Totromehts where all the Guild’s secrets were stored for exactly such an event when much of the populace was wiped out and the Art might be lost, and that Totromehts could be visited when the time came.

We met on Nora’s Relto again, and it was decided that Bear and Rhys would go through first. About two minutes later Nora’s KI pinged and she raised her eyebrows. “I’ve got to go pick them up, they were forced to panic-link out.”

Kadish and I just looked each other owlishly. What could have gone wrong?

Rhys’ dark skin looked a bit ashen, and Bear looked really grumpy. “Place is a death trap,” he grumbled, “if we didn’t have our Reltos, we’d be splattered all over that planet.”

“But I saw an airship in the distance,” Rhys said quietly. “It seemed huge. Maybe the link was supposed to go there but it moved?”

I looked at Kadish. “Can I see that letter, please? I have an inkling.”

With an accusing look because of the horrible pun he handed it over. “What are you looking for?”

I hummed. “Numbers. See, the D’ni liked their puzzles, and I think this might be just another one. Gahreesen rotated, so you could only link to the stationary middle. What if this is something similar? Mereno wrote ‘when the time came’ - what if he wasn’t referring to the time of cataclysm, but to the right time to visit the ship, which is probably orbiting?”

Kadish snatched the letter back. “Yes, that’s...the date isn’t right. D’ni fell nine thousand four hundred, not three thousand two hundred and two. And he references the day Kerath abdicated...I’ll do the calculations.”

I was very glad that he had volunteered, because numbers and I were _not_ friends.

It took Kadish about ten minutes, and I just wanted to cry in shame. “It would seem like the ship circles the planet below in five yahr. I’ll send you a list of possible jump dates for the next month as calculated from the day of Kerath’s abdication. So that would put the next one for tomorrow.”

“Luckily the ship was close enough for us to see,” Rhys said, “otherwise we wouldn’t have thought that it might exist.”

***

Kadish’s calculations were right on the money. We linked into the ship the next time we tried.

“I wanna hold a Gatsby party in this place,” Nora exclaimed, turning in one spot, looking around open mouthed. I could sort of see what she meant; like most D’ni builds it had a Art-Nouveau/Art-Deco feel to it, and the gleaming brass and stained glass windows did put one right into the Jazz Age. As did the whole dirigible thing.

The middle of the airship was one long hall; it made sense, since the thing still moved and it would be very awkward to link into an occupied bathroom or something.

Bear rubbed his hands. “Okay, folks. Let’s split up to explore and meet back here at 1500 KI time. That ought to get this done faster. And don’t get complacent, this place might be more dangerous than you’d think.”

We nodded and parted ways. I went up one of the winding staircases to the top and saw Rhys do the same thing on the other side of the ship. All the doors opened, no locks - but also not so much interesting stuff either. Two mostly empty offices, and a bathroom. I dug through all three rooms for a while, finding D’ni stuff was always fascinating - and now I had someone I could ask!

I even found some fiction hidden away in a secret compartment of a desk. Naughty, naughty; someone was reading stories on the job. I packed those away to take with me. I used to study literature at university before having to quit for various reasons (most of them coming down to money), and had always found it easier to learn a language by reading stories in it. Maybe I could even do a rough translation to practise?

“Guys, you better come up here,” Rhys’ voice through the Ki startled me out of my thoughts.

I left the second office and made my way to the other side, where Rhys waited for us in what looked like very lived in quarters.

"Look at this," Rhys said as he gestured to the things surrounding him, "Someone lived here for what looks like decades. Perhaps one of the guild members stationed here during the Fall?"

Kadish moved towards a cabinet and started looking through it. A little while later he turned back towards us with several books in his hands. "These are diaries. Perhaps they'll tell us what happened."

We settled in a rather lavish common room and Kadish started to translate the diaries for us. There had been two guild members stationed here at all times, and when D'ni fell, the ones who'd been here at the time had been cut off. A last message on their KIs instructed them that they were not to return to D'ni or any other Age until they were told differently, and that if they didn't hear anything further, they should assume D'ni wasn't any more. So the two ink-makers had lived out their lives on the airship. One of them had died rather soon due to his already advanced age, and the other one had been alone for decades. The last entry told of his plans to go overboard since there was nobody to bury him, and the combination to the safe-room and where to find it, since he didn't want the Art to die with him.

The instructions were clear, and soon we all stood in a well hidden room full of ledgers and various odds and ends. In the middle was a pedestal holding a glass case in which was a very ornate looking book.

That was it, I thought, that was the goal of our first journey, all the secret knowledge of the Ink Maker Guild.

Kadish removed the book from its case and leafed through it, a frown appearing on his face. "It's written in code."

"Lemme see," Rhys said and moved so he could read over his shoulder. "That looks pretty complex, yeah. But we know D'ni and without computers and encryption based on really big prime numbers there's a limit to how bad it can be. I can take a crack at it, if you want? And if I can't do it, I know a few guys."

"Sounds like a plan," Bear said, and Kadish nodded, handing the book over to Rhys.

Nora had a big smile on her face regardless. "But now we have everything we need for the ink. We've got the pods, the bugs, and all the other stuff, and now we've got the recipe too - as soon as the code is broken. This is the first step done."

"Yeah," I said, "Now we can look into how to make the books."

Things were definitely looking up, and I felt pretty confident that we would manage to breathe life into D'ni again.

**End of Book One**


End file.
